Anne Hathaway plays a newly divorced 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected dalliance with the 24-year-old lead singer of the hottest boy band on the planet. Based on the book "The Idea of You" (TIOY), the movie is a mixed bag for me. I like a good romance, but I'm not sure this is it.
TIOY tries to give the audience its idea of the typical romantic stuff they expect while also delivering a surprise or two. It was all surprising to me, not only since I didn't read the book on which it's based (no surprise there), but because of what constitutes a cougar (an actual 40-year-old beauty like Anne Hathaway), their idea of a massive age difference (16 years?), the glamorized versions of life on the road and the most sanitized Coachella you will ever see, it was hard to take a lot of this seriously. Especially when it eventually asks us to take it all very seriously as our star-crossed lovers run into the inevitable problems that come with speculative paparazzi and internet trolls. Much of it was unbelievable considering Hathaway is (actually) a gorgeous, only 40-year-old educated woman who successfully runs her own upscale art dealership... but she's still traded in for a newer model by her husband.
At least her meet-cute with Nicholas Galitzine is entertaining, although supporting actor Annie Mumolo gets most of the best lines in what little screen time she had - and she should have had more! And no one reacts well to most of the drama which could have been easily dealt with by a decent conversation... which no one has. Let's instead break up multiple times only to come back together a scene or two later... or a few years later now that Galitzine is even more popular and now a whopping 29 years old by the movie's end? And I can't believe that neither he nor Hathaway had any suitors at that time, being as appealing as they are in various ways.
Not that most of the audience cares about any of this stuff, and at least it does deal (a bit) with the double standard of older men dating younger women, but not for long, and not well.
The Idea of You (2024)
MPAA: R
Running Time: 1h 55m
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
